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Our environment needs national protection

Prime Minister Tony Abbott is pushing ahead with his destructive plans to ditch national environmental powers, and put national icons like the Great Barrier Reef in the hands of his environmentally reckless state cronies.

On 16 June 2014, the House of Representatives passed a bill to facilitate the hand-off of federal environmental powers, including giving protection for water from coal seam gas back to the very state governments who let CSG run rampant in the first place.

If Tony Abbott's bill passes the Senate, it would put the states or even local governments in charge of our most precious environmental icons. Environmental standards would drop and the fox would be in charge of the hen house. The Greens will do everything we can to stop that happening - will you help us?

Federal environmental approval powers have been in place for more than 30 years and saved the Reef from being scarred with oil rigs in the Bjelke-Petersen era.

Without that federal layer of scrutiny for our most important environmental assets, there would be little to stand in the way of wide-spread environmental destruction for the sake of private profits.

In Queensland - my home state - this would mean no more federal environmental oversight to protect the Great Barrier Reef, just wall-to-wall Campbell "we're in the coal business" Newman. He is the last person that should be entrusted with complete control over the future of our precious species and places.

The Greens will fight Tony's Abbott's attack on environmental protections with everything we have, in the Senate, in the media, and in the community, but we're going to need your help.

The Greens want to strengthen environmental protection.

Our environment is under attack like never before.

Tasmania's incredible Tarkine rainforest is under threat from mining. Our national parks are at risk from logging, shooting and grazing. Our iconic Great Barrier Reef is becoming a highway for coal and gas shipping. Even our beloved koala and Tasmanian devil are facing extinction, and logging has reduced Victoria's state emblem, the Leadbeater's possum, to less than a thousand in the wild. We need to act now to save our precious places and wildlife.

Tony Abbott wants to make our environment laws even weaker

If we had given state governments' sole control of national environment law in the past, the Franklin River would be dammed, there would be oil rigs in the Great Barrier Reef, cattle grazing in the Alpine National Park and Traveston Dam would have gone ahead.

We can't leave protecting Australia's environment up to the states.

The Greens offered to work with Labor to stop this from happening, through a Greens bill, motions, and amendments to Abbott-proof our national environmental laws. But Labor refused every time, leaving Labor complicit in Tony Abbott's plan to remove key federal veto powers over destructive development.

We can stop this together. We need to stand together as a community to strengthen our environment's protection, not weaken it.

The Greens are a strong, alternative voice in Parliament.

The Greens will stand up against Tony Abbott's plan to hand off national environment law to the states.

Together we can protect what we love about Australia. Now and into the future.

Latest on Our environment needs national protection

Big business outcry over the Senate saving federal environment protection from Tony Abbott’s one-stop shop shows complete disregard for our most important natural assets, many of which underpin sustainable industries, say the Australian Greens.

It's with great pleasure that I speak to this report this afternoon. It's a very comprehensive report and it's into the somewhat nonsensical notion that you can destroy invaluable and unique parts of Australia's environment and somehow just make a different version somewhere else and that will make up for the damage you've done.